Letter C Playdough Mats

Product description

From the author

These letter C playdough mats allow students to build those fine motor muscles while learning about things that begin with the letter C. Each mat features a picture of a word that starts with C for students to use playdough to create.

These mats are suitable to preschoolers and kindergartners who are learning about the initial sound of the letter C and those who need extra practice building up their fine motor skills.

There are 7 different playdough mats in this set:

C is for cat
C is for corn
C is for cup
C is for carrot
C is for cookie
C is for candle
C is for crab

When to Use

Fine Motor Center
Playdough Center
Alphabet Center
Literacy Center
Independent Activity
Small Group Activity
Morning Tub or Basket Activity
Table Top Activity
Skills Assessed
Fine Motor Skills
Beginning Sounds
The playdough mats themselves are no prep. The teacher will simply print them out, and laminate them if desired and place them in the appropriate center or activity area. All that needs to be added to this activity is different colored playdough or clay.
These mats not only provide a fun and engaging activity for students to practice fine motor skills, they also provide a way for students to associate the initial sound of the letter C to recognizable pictures. Teachers will love the easy set up for this center activity.

By laminating these pages, teachers will have a reusable playdough center for students to use over and over. The playdough should not stick to the laminated pages. If laminating is not an option, I would recommend placing the playdough mats inside page protectors or in plastic sleeves. The playdough will not stick to their surfaces as well.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Produce the sound the letter C makes at the start of seven words: corn, cup, candle, cookie, cat, crab, carrot
Recognise the capital letter C in print, repeated in the caption on every mat
Shape playdough or clay to fill the object on the mat, working hand and finger control alongside the letter work

Teaching tips

Introduce the mats in whatever order suits your class rather than the file's order - corn is first in the file, while cat, usually the most familiar C word, does not appear until the fifth mat
Each caption is a complete sentence with a full stop, so it can be tracked word by word as a short shared reading before any playdough comes out
Print only the mats whose objects your children can already name; the pages are independent and nothing on one mat refers to another

Skills covered

Initial-sound recognition - seven objects that all start with the same letter, corn, cup, candle, cookie, cat, crab and carrot, are met one per page.
Letter-C awareness in print - the capital C sits at the front of the caption on every one of the seven mats, in the identical position each time.
Fine-motor shaping - children build the object on the mat out of playdough or clay, which is the format the set is named and laid out for.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

Which words does the set cover?

Seven, one per mat and in this order through the file: corn, cup, candle, cookie, cat, crab and carrot.

Do all seven words use the same C sound?

They do - corn, cup, candle, cookie, cat, crab and carrot all take the hard /k/ sound. No soft-c word such as city or circle appears anywhere in the set, so the sound stays consistent while children work through the mats.

Are the labels written as sentences or as single words?

As sentences. Each mat reads "C is for corn." with a capital C and a full stop, so the caption doubles as a short line of print a child can track word by word rather than a bare object label.